When we do discard our ego, and abandon our individuality, we begin to see this world as it is. This is a “seeing” beyond emotional, mental and sensory perceptions. It must even surpass “empathy,” our identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings and motives. It progresses to an intuitive insight into the spiritual essence in all around us. It is suprarational consciousness.
To completely go beyond “me” is to lose all awareness of self. In encounters with others you are totally absorbed in them. After selflessly following the spiritual disciplines, you will eventually lose any awareness of other. In sublime discernment, separate forms will appear, but essential differences do not. It is the full acceptance of oneness, sharing in divine union. The unity of existence is evident.
Many of us have had a brief absorption in universal unity, with no sense of separateness. Unless we were advanced in spirituality, or actively engaged on the mystical quest, the awe of oneness which had we felt was as inexplicable as it was profound. It was impossible to sustain it when we tried to understand it; sometimes it may even have been frightening. We had seemed to have lost hold of “reality.” We actually had a glimpse of true Reality, the nature of being itself.
Some might say that to suggest going outside self and outside other contradicts traditional teachings of mysticism: to go within to seek our inner self, or the soul. Rational consciousness, with its constant imaging, conceives of outer or inner. In suprarational consciousness of mystics, it is focusing beyond apparent realities to the underlying Reality. Whether we follow the inner path of contemplation and meditation, or an outer path of objectivity and concentration, the goal is transcending appearances to realize the One essence in All.
Barriers to the inner path are an endless stream of our subjective thoughts. Blockades to the outer path are the multitude of physical objects. Our ego creates those interior barriers; our individuality experiences the external blockades. When you discard the first, and abandon the second, you can then move in any direction from the apparent to the Real. Those thoughts and objects do not vanish; their disparities are insignificant in light of shared divine essence.
Dualities of subject and object, which our isolated self does seem to encounter, are scattered reflections of the divine, diffusion of the One into the many, simply phased impressions of unity. “Darken” differences until they fade, the inner way, or “illuminate” them until sameness emerges, the outer way, each result in a vision of oneness. While in divine union, however, there are no distinctions between the lover and beloved, knower and known, or seeker and sought.
Those rare saints, who are perpetually in universal consciousness, are not interested in an inner way or outer way; those concepts just confuse what is. Their prime concern is accepting the flow of divine essence into every aspect of their being. Some saints again slipped into what Christian mysticism has called “the dark night of the soul,” which they consider a stage just before divine union. For someone who had realized, figuratively, the fifth power (c5) of consciousness, this return to separation from the divine One could be devastating.
Many mystics are accustomed to experiences of divine oneness coming and going; some frequently and others rarely. Those were wonderful moments which enhanced their lives. For the perpetual mystics, union was their life. Most of those saints had developed the personal fortitude whi